Authors detail impact of Covid-19 on media

Two years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t exist; today, it is one of the key prisms through which we understand the changes in the media.

The pandemic, whose impact started to be felt early in 2020, has exacerbated the challenges in the media industry and that is a common thread in two books published recently about the industry by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS),  an independent, non-profit German political foundation that aims to strengthen democratic forces around the world.

The two books, published in succession, offer insights into the past, present and the future of the media industry globally and in sub-Saharan Africa specifically. 

“Catalyst or Destabiliser? – Covid-19 and Its Impact on the Media Landscape Worldwide” attempts to investigate the ‘diverse consequences’ the pandemic has on the media landscape in different regions of the world. 

Veteran journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo edits “Pioneers, Rebels, and a Few Villains:  150 Years of Journalism in Eastern Africa” an important piece of journalism history of the Eastern African Region is itself rudely interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“It is a trophy,” Onyango-Obbo writes “of the battle fought and won through the pandemic in 2020 and into the start of 2021”.  That triumph is reflective of what the media has had to go through and will likely continue to experience. 

The contributors in their wide-ranging analysis of the media in the Eastern African region through some key figures (journalists) offer an in-depth look at the industry that is mostly understood and studied from developments in the West. 

They zero down the Eastern African region to 16 countries including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar, DR Congo, and Mauritius.

“We did not want to do a book for thoroughbred journalists or media scholars. Our target was a Millennial reader, young journalists looking to connect the present to the past and to excite them into doing something with the material; an illustrated book, documentaries, films, or use it as an entry-level journalism teaching aid,” Mr Onyango-Obbo writes. 

Despite the doom associated with the pandemic that has claimed more than 4.9 million lives and counting globally, caused massive job loses, the book highlights the opportunities it could have for the industry amid all the gloom and doom.  In the media, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen journalists and other media workers contract the virus and die or keep away from work for very long, decline in revenue, and job losses. Covid-19 prevention measures such as curfews have also hampered the operations of the media. In some cases, the pandemic has also forced journalists and other media entrepreneurs to innovate and experiment with new ideas of disseminating information. 

Independent, reliable information, the authors note is in great demand and that the pandemic offers opportunities for new digital models due to the increased demand for quality journalism.

 “In fact, the contributions as a whole give the impression that with regard to the global media landscape, the pandemic is both a destabiliser upsetting the traditional, as well as a catalyst accelerating necessary renewal processes that had already been underway,” writes Dr Sören Soika, the editor-in-chief International Reports Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. 

Describing it as the “the storm that knocked journalism off its feet”,   Rita Nyaga in Onyango-Obbo’s “Pioneers, Rebels, and a Few Villains:  150 Years of Journalism in Eastern Africa” paints the devastation of the pandemic on the media industry. 

“With the job losses, shattered careers, and the collapse of incomes and livelihoods, Covid-19 could result in easily one of the largest physical dislocations of journalists in Eastern Africa, and their exit from the middle class, of recent times. And when the story gets written long after the storm has passed, the irony that in some countries covering the disease was as deadly, if not more so, than reporting on war will be inescapable,” she said.